Saw two ads - CZ5000 for $200 and VZ8m for $89. I always wanted the CZ5000 but at $209.88 it seems a bit much, even with free shipping. The VZ goes for $89 and I could pick it up by tomorrow.. Now besides the price and accessibility, I guess I'm looking for reasons to go for or hold back on either one.. here's what I'm struggling with.. I used to have a CZ101 but had to sell it when I was short on cash, so I'm familiar with PD synthesis and how these synths are programmed, but I also wanted to try out a VZ kind of synth but I'd rather prefer VZ1/10m because of it's graphic display. I like the PD sound but IPD seems so much more sophisticated but also much more difficult to program. The CZ5000 has a neat 8 track sequencer with a nice albeit monophonic only continuous loop feature that makes it useful for live play, and the synth is much easier to program and with stacking you still get 4x polyphony out of it compared to the 1.5 monophonic layering on the CZ101. Stacking up the features and drawbacks between the CZ5000 and VZ8m.. I still can't make up my mind. If I could afford it I would get em both but unfortunately I can't. Hope someone can sway me to one or another direction before they're both gone.

It was always a pity that Casio left the pro synth market back in the day - I think if they had married the CZ with more complex waveforms, multi-mode filters, fx engine and interface much like a JD800 with true 64 note polyphony and 16 part multi operation it would have been wonderful.
In essence we've seen what the Yamaha SY85 tech (AWM2) has developed into over the course of 20 years. Something we never got the luxury of with Casio.
The FZ-10M was one of my first ever samplers and it was a great bit of kit back in the day, with the SH-09, CZ1000 and Sequential Six Track being the first 3 synths I ever owned and used._________________Autocorrect is becoming my new enema .......

Just wanted to give you all an update - I went for the Casio CZ-5000 but I kind of regret not going for a CZ 1 instead for it has velocity, which can be modulated with the mod wheel thus allowing real time changes in the PD timbre, but the nifty little sequencer kind of makes up for it.

MusicMan - I'm into electronic music but I haven't settled for a particular style yet (and don't think I ever will). At this point it's all experimental but to give you an idea of what I do, picture Justice, Depeche Mode and Kraftwerk having a party at Jarre's place, and then comes Trent Reznor crashing the party.
Thanks for the hint about the editor for the VZ, but since I went for the CZ 5000 I'm set for now, but I'm still keeping my eyes peeled for another cheap VZ (the other one's gone )

Venn - I think Casio did something like what Yamaha did but they called it IXA and they used that in the CTK-1000, which had some limited sound editing capabilities. But then it wasn't really a "professional" synth but an advanced table hooter.

. . . I kind of regret not going for a CZ 1 instead for it has velocity, which can be modulated with the mod wheel thus allowing real time changes in the PD timbre, but the nifty little sequencer kind of makes up for it.

Thanks for the hint about the editor for the VZ, but since I went for the CZ 5000 I'm set for now, but I'm still keeping my eyes peeled for another cheap VZ (the other one's gone )

If you want to do realtime iPD timbral changes, you can actually do much more with the VZ line than with the CZ-1.

Back in the 80s, I dissected the CZ-5000 memory dump. You can get smaller values via sysex than you can with the user interface (buttons). You can do things like set the number of interval voices used in a sequence to zero and have the sequencer play an external sound module and still have up to 16 1-oscilator polyphony live from the keyboard.

In monotimbral mode (1 voice per channel) you can turn local off, send the keyboard out to a program of your own design, and route it back in to control the 8 voices accessible via midi. I did this and had an array set up so that each note played would first send out a program change command on an open channel. Basically the table enabled me to have each key play a different patch based--up to 8 voices at a time.

Well, that's about all I can tell you about the CZ-5000--unless I find my notes about the sequencer's memory structure and usage.

One more thing, if you want to get a sequencer dump, you can pile up ACKs before the final F7 in the sysex dump request so you get all of the packets in the dump. (Note: the CZs do the final F7 only after the handshaking dance is finished.)

The CZ synths are not so hard to program. The multi-stage envelopes are basically AR envelopes in series. The trick is to get each EG just right to get the sound/flow that you want. Not much more difficult than say a MS2000, Arp 2500, ...

I could be wrong, but I thought the "bitch to program" comment referred to all the button pushing to move through the display pages and to change the settings from max to min (or vice versa), not to the theory of operation of the synth engine.
Steve

I was referring to the complexity of the VZ's programming process itself, not just to the fact that they (the racks) don't have any knobs nor sliders at all. I was using the explanation of the CZ EGs because that's what Vern pointed out and put him off about his CZ synth. I was just trying to point out that the CZ synths are not difficult to program at all, but then again I'm comfortable in both worlds and for me it's all about fun vs precision - knobs are fun and great for performances while buttons are precise in small increments and you have complete control over parameter values. Anyways I didn't mean to argue, I love my babes how they are, no matter of the UI (unless it's tons of menus within menus.. yuck!)

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